Don’t expect a perfect English lawn. My garden is more of an experiment, and gardening for me means inviting every bee (wild or honeybee) to stick around. It always feels a little like vacation. Just a lot closer to home.
What Gardening Gives Me
I love my garden, except for one thing: it’s too small. But I’m working on that. Otherwise, I can’t imagine life without it anymore. Besides barbecues and a glass of white wine on a warm summer night, this retreat gives me so much:
- Meditation: Meditating in the sun is one thing. But pulling weeds, letting my thoughts wander and being completely present has a quality all its own.
- Living with the seasons: Strawberries in winter? Hardly. Apples in spring? No. At some point everything has bloomed and grown. Then comes the fruit. And then the withdrawal and rest until next spring. I’m trying to live more by the seasons, especially when it comes to food, and the garden keeps reminding me what’s in season right now. Far more than the supermarket does, organic or not.
- Feeling: As a confirmed barefoot walker, I enjoy every step across the grass, the moss, the soil and the sand.
- Grounding: After a few days in front of a screen, digging my hands into damp soil does me a world of good. Ideally with a worm in it. Afterward, the typing comes easier again.
- Handmade: The raised bed and the sandbox are built by hand, not bought at the hardware store. I planned and installed the irrigation myself. Tied up a grapevine trellis. Yes, there’s always something to do. Yippiejaja-yippie-yippie-yeah!
- Food: Gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, red and black currants, blackberries, hazelnuts (well, only a few), tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, onions, radishes, carrots (or Möhren, as they say here in Germany 😉), rhubarb, garden and wild herbs, peaches, plums, pears, apples … Pretty much everything, right?
- Oddities: I’m fascinated by rare and unusual plants. The apple tree bears 4 different varieties. The tomatoes range from the dark “Black Plum” to hairy tomatoes to the handy “travel tomato,” which grows in ready-made portions. In the herb bed, several kinds of mint for tea grow next to stinging nettles for smoothies, which is also where the extra grapevine leaves end up. In another corner there’s Jerusalem artichoke, which you can do a lot with, too.
- Working: Nature is one of my favorite places to work. The fresh air and the sounds around me really get me into a flow. And there’s hardly anywhere I’m as productive as with my laptop on the patio or in the beach chair.
So. Right now about 5 bats are zipping around above me. After my major ear surgery last year, I’m glad I can still hear them. How lovely. Oh, I hear the hedgehog coming. Gotta go. Good night.
